Part 37 (1/2)
”He was here,” she said in a sort of aside. ”He stayed all night a-Sat.u.r.day. Zack said he was kinder foolish, but I thought he had as much sense as most of 'em.” Her gaze rested kindly on the old man. The children, wild and shy as young foxes, had stolen to the door of the cabin, in which they had taken refuge, and were staring out wonderingly.
”Well, we'll have to ask you could we stay to-night,” Johnnie began doubtfully. ”My uncle's been out of his head, and he got away from the folks at the hospital. I came up to hunt for him. I've just found him--but we aren't going right back. I met a man out there on the road that did something to him that--that--” she despaired of putting into words that the woman could comprehend the miracle which she had seen the stranger work--”Well, Uncle Pros is all right now, and we'd like to stay the night if we can.”
”Come in--come in--the both of you,” urged the woman, turning toward the cabin. ”'Course, ye kin stay, an' welcome. Set and rest. Zack ain't home now. He's--” A curious, furtive look went over her round face. ”Zack has got a job on hand, ploughing for--ploughing for a neighbour, but he'll be home to-night.”
They went in and sat down. A kettle of wild greens was cooking over the fire, and everything was spotlessly clean. Mandy had said truly that there wasn't a thing on the farm she didn't love to do, and the gift of housewifery ran in the family. Johnnie had barely explained who she was, and made such effort as she could to enlist Mandy's sister, when Zack came tramping home, and showed, she thought, some uneasiness at finding them there. The wife ran out and met him before he reached the cabin, and they stood talking together a long time, the lines of both figures somehow expressing dismay; yet when they came in there was a fair welcome in the man's demeanour. At the supper table, whose scanty fare was well cooked, Uncle Pros and Johnnie had to tell again, and yet again, the story of that miraculous healing which both husband and wife could see was genuine.
Through it all, both Pros and Johnnie attempted to lead the talk around to some information which might be of use to them. Nothing was more natural than that they should speak of Gray Stoddard's disappearance, since Watauga, Cottonville, and the mountains above were full of the topic; yet husband and wife sheered from it in a sort of terror.
”Them that makes or meddles in such gits theirselves into trouble, that's what I say,” Zack told the visitors, stroking a chin whose contours expressed the resolution and aggressiveness of a rabbit. ”I ain't never seen this here Mr. Man as far as I know. I don't never want to see him. I ain't got no call to mix myself up in such, and I 'low I'll sleep easier and live longer if I don't do it.”
”That's right,” quavered Roxy. ”Burkhalter's boy, he had to go to mixin'
in when the Culps and the Venables was feudin'; and look what chanced.
Nary one o' them families lost a man; but Burkhalter's boy got hisself killed up. Yes, that's what happened to him. Dead. I went to the funeral.”
”True as Scriptur',” confirmed Zack--”reach an' take off, Pros. Johnnie, eat hearty--true as you-all set here. I he'ped make the coffin an' dig the grave.”
After a time there came a sort of ruth to Johnnie for the poor creatures, furtive, stealing glances at each other, and answering her inquiries or Uncle Pros's with dry, evasive plat.i.tudes. She knew there was no malice in either of them; and that only the abject terror of the weak kept them from giving whatever bit of information it was they had and were consciously withholding. Soon she ceased plying them with questions, and signalled Uncle Pros that he should do the same. After the children were asleep in their trundle-bed, the four elders sat by the dying fire on the hearth and talked a little. Johnnie told Zack and Roxy of the mill work at Cottonville, how well she had got on, and how good Mr. Stoddard had been to her, choking over the treasured remembrances. She related the many kindnesses that had been shown Pros and his kinfolk at the Hospital, how the old man had been there for three months, treated as a guest during the latter part of his stay rather than a patient, and how Mr. Stoddard would leave his work in the office to come and cheer the sick man, or quiet him if he got violent.
”He looked perfectly dreadful when I first saw him,” she said to them, ”but the doctors took care of him as if he'd been a little baby. The nurses fed him by spoonfuls and coaxed him just like you would little Honey; and Mr. Stoddard--he never was too busy to--” the tears brimmed her eyes in the dusky cabin interior--”to come when Uncle Pros begged for him.”
The woman sighed and stirred uneasily, her eye stealthily seeking her husband's.
In that little one-room hut there was no place for guests. Presently the men drifted out to the chip pile, where they lingered a while in desultory talk. Roxy and Johnnie, partly undressed, occupied the one bed; and later the host and his guest came in and lay down, clothed just as they were, with their feet to the fire, and slept.
In the darkness just before dawn, Johnnie wakened from heavy sleep and raised her head to find that a clear fire was burning on the hearth and the two men were gone. Noiselessly she arose, and replaced her outer wear, thinking to slip away without disturbing Roxy. But when she returned softly to the interior, after laving face and hands out at the wash-basin, and ordering her abundant hair, she found the little woman up and clad, slicing bacon and making coffee of generous strength from their scanty store.
”No--why, the idea!” cried Roxy. ”Of course, you wasn't a-goin' on from no house o' mine 'thout no breakfast. Why, I say!”
Johnnie's throat swelled at the humble kindness. They ate, thanked Roxy and her man Zack in the simple uneffusive mountain fas.h.i.+on, and started away in the twilight of dawn. The big road was barely reached, when they heard steps coming after them in the dusk, and a breathless voice calling in a whisper, ”Johnnie! Johnnie!”
The two turned and waited till Roxy came up.
”I--ye dropped this on the floor,” the woman said, fumbling in her pocket and bringing out a bit of paper. ”I didn't know as it was of any value--and then again I didn't know but what it might be. Johnnie--” she broke off and stood peering hesitatingly into the gloom toward the girl's s.h.i.+ning face.
With a quick touch of the arm Johnnie signed to Pros to move on. As he swung out of earshot, the bulging light eyes, so like Mandy's, were suddenly dimmed by a rush of tears.
”I reckon he'd beat me ef he knowed I told,” Roxy gasped. ”He ain't never struck me yit, and us married five year--but I reckon he'd beat me for that.”
Johnnie wisely forbore reply or interference of any sort. The woman gulped, drew her breath hard, and looked about her.
”Johnnie,” she whispered again, ”the--that there thing they ride in--the otty-mobile--hit broke down, and Zack was over to Pres Blevin's blacksmith shop a-he'pin' 'em work on it all day yesterday. You know Pres--he married Lura Dawson's aunt. Neither Himes nor Buckheath could git it to move, but by night they had it a-runnin'--or so hit _would_ run. That's why you never saw tracks of it on the road--hit hadn't been along thar yit. But hit's went on this morning. No--no--no! I don't know whar it went. I don't know what they was aimin' to do. I don't know nothin'! Don't ask me, Johnnie Consadine, I reckon I've said right now what's put my man's neck in danger. Oh, my G.o.d--I wish the men-folks would quit their fussin' an' feudin'!”
And she turned and ran distractedly back into the cabin while Johnnie hurried on to join her uncle.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE RESCUE